Vegan sushi: Where to get the best plant-based Japanese food in the UK

When you think of sushi you probably think raw fish. Most people do. But it doesn’t need to be that way.

You can get rolls stuffed with avocado, cucumber, and all sorts of exotic plants too.

Vegan sushi is huge in New York City (think Beyond Sushi, above) and it’s getting there in London and further afield in the UK as well.

British Japanese restaurants – chains and independents – are experimenting more and more and serving sushi filled with Japanese pickle, all kinds of mushrooms and even tempeh (fermented soy cake – a rare vegan treat).

Menus are being more clearly labelled and ranges are expanding.

Here are some of the best places to go, and what to order at each one.

Yo! Sushi

Yo! Sushi has tons of vegan sushi options and they can do bespoke vegan specials too, depending on the branch.

The Japanese conveyor belt set-up now offers an impressive 19 vegan dishes.

You can also try the miso dumpling ramen, vegetable yakisoba, pumpkin katsu, inari pockets (great as a sushi side with the hot dishes), simple and sweet cucumber or avocado maki, kaiso gunkan and sunomono salad (this is really good).

Yo! also does a bespoke hand roll, so you can make it vegan, and they’re launching a new street food menu on March 8 called TokYO!

Metro taste test

There’s a decent selection of vegan stuff here. I opted for a veggie hand roll (pictured) and asked to make it vegan.

The brownish sliced miso baked aubergine tastes 10x better than it looks – crispy, caramelised and moist all at once. It’s sweet and salty with a bit of tang and melts in the mouth.

Wasabi

You get inari (tofu pocket) with carrot, avocado, red pepper and cucumber; hosomaki with avocado, cucumber, inari and red pepper, salad with mixed leaves, French beans and edamame, and of course soy sauce, ginger and wasabi.

The chain’s tofu yakisoba also won a Peta award, this time for best vegan noodles. The dish features a generous portion of flavoursome noodles and tofu – perfect for lunch on the go.